Male-Female Symbolism

From Yes to Women Priestspp30-47

by F. W. DILLISTONE

edited by Bishop Hugh Montifiore
Published 1978 by Mayhew-McCrimmon Ltd
iin association with A. R. Mowbray & Co. Ltd
Republished on our website with the necessary permissions

Priests, priestesses, prophets, prophetesses, pastors, preachers have without exception been individuals acting in representative capacities. They have acted at particular times and places on behalf of particular communities to which they have belonged. In so acting they have adopted symbolic roles, for all symbols are designed to bring together two entities-two objects, two events or two situations. A symbolic person, through actions and character, brings together an individual or a community to which he is related and some other quality or person beyond immediate experience.

The essential function of symbols is to extend human experience and knowledge and this means that sooner or later certain highly important questions arise. Can symbolic persons be found who can act on the one hand as representatives of their community and on the other hand-and simultaneously-as representatives of ultimate reality? Or again can symbolic individuals bring together their community in its present existence with events of universal significance which have happened in the past or are expected to happen in the future? Put quite simply can symbolic persons bring us into relation with personal presence and action transcending ‘the boundaries of space and time? This is, I judge, the basic question at the root of all other questions about ministry and priesthood.

Let us begin with certain assumptions about the social organization of mankind which seem now to have gained general acceptance. It appears that many communities have succeeded in finding the necessary means for their subsistence within strictly limited areas. They have been relatively independent of external change and the range of their communal experience has, in consequence, been, entirely circumscribed.

The constant uncertainty within all such communities has been that of the preservation and renewal of life itself. None could escape from physical death. The struggle to survive in face of disease and natural ills was unremitting. The threat of infertility in the womb and in nature could never be ignored. Unless there existed in some mysterious realm perpetual sources of renewed vitality the human condition seemed hopeless. In the organization of society the role of highest distinction was that of the symbolic mediator of life, representing the outstanding social need and bringing it into effective relationship with some supra-human source of supply.

The many variations of. this general pattern need not detain us for it has gained what might be called archetypal expression, within the immensely impressive structure of social organization which developed as a result of the discovery of regular methods of agriculture. The fecundity of mother-earth, coupled with its dependence upon adequate water supplies; the seemingly miraculous process by which seed buried in the soil produced sprouts of fresh green; the possibilities of preserving grain in store-houses and of binding the whole society together its varying members performed their appointed tasks; all this brought about a new era in the history of mankind, an era rejoicing in a host of new symbolic forms, above all in the realm of religious imagery.

In this concern for continuing life it was inevitable that the focus of practical interest should have been the land, the mysterious source of life-energies. The symbolic representation of the ultimate bestower of the bounty by which all life was sustained took the form of EarthMother, whose worship constitutes the dominant feature of the religion of the ancient Mediterranean world. And just as the human mother needed ín some way to be impregnated and sustained, (ages passed before the dawning of any general awareness of the dependence of generation upon the sexual act) so too the earth-mother had to be provided with a continuous supply of those elements which would enable her to generate and sustain life. Symbolic agents offered symbolic gifts-water, grain, fruit, blood-but at all times one fundamental principle governed the ritual drama. It was the principle of sacrifice. Through some form of symbolic offering, some form of symbolic death, new potencies would be engendered and the continuance of the life of the society would be ensured.

Over a period covering thousands of years no uniformity of ritual observances can be identified nor any restriction of cult-officials to one or other of the sexes. Yet the dominating note of the ancient agricultural economies was reverence for the feminine. The earth-mother was the divinity held in deepest awe and esteem. Cult-agents were normally priestesses. The motif of cultic actions was pre-eminently the continuance of fertility and fruitfulness. Male deities and male officiants had significant tasks to perform but behind all was a sustained devotion to the land and the conviction that only through some form of sacrificial action could its fecundity be preserved.

Yet although the most noteworthy development of human experience and organization during some ten millennia has been the building up of civilizations upon the foundation of an agricultural economy-sowing; planting, irrigating, harvesting, distributing, storing and although within these civilizations communal ritual forms have been directed towards the generating and sustaining and ordering of life, life which seemed in a mysterious way to depend upon the fruitfulness of the feminine, whether amongst animals and humans or the earth itself, it is clear that this was not the exclusive-form of early social organization. Far back in the past there had been tribes of hunters and there have never ceased to be societies whose pattern of life has been nomadic rather than settled, migratory rasher than cyclic. Even when the notable advance was made by which animals were tamed and made subservient to man’s more regular needs, the urge to be on the move was never extinguished. There was the continuing search for water and fresh pasture, for new possibilities of exchange, even simply far a better habitat.

In societies of this kind the dominating concert has ever been the discovery of fresh sources of energy and their exploitation. In the struggle with wild beasts and hard natural conditions the all-important factors were superior strength and skill, co-operation and loyalty. The women tended the fire and supervised the family and the camp but it was the man who was responsible for the food-supply and protection. When carrying or suckling a child, a woman was incapable of hunting or fighting. Occasionally a woman leader might appear but this was a rarity. The whole economy depended upon the strength and the purpose of the male. In such a society the land is of little concern except as an imagined far-off haven of rest. Men seek the aid of divinities believed to be strong and active on their behalf. The all important mediator between the tribe and its special deity is the man inspired by a powerful divine spirit and capable of discerning and communicating divine directions for the advancement of the tribe’s interests.

In all situations in which the dominant concerns have been superior physical strength and directions for its effective use in future enterprises, men have inevitably gained pre-eminence on the public plane. Behind the scenes women have had essential tasks to perform but these have been regarded as secondary. For the welfare of the community man’s strength and skills have been of primary significance and he too has been the symbolic link with transcendent power and wisdom. Those who have chosen to journey to and fro on barren steppes or on the high seas have consistently sought the aid of a Strong Deliverer and of a Foreseeing Leader. The hero and the prophet have been the archetypal symbolic figures in the religious activities of dynamic societies

It has been a comparatively simple matter to isolate these two distinctive patterns of early social organization. The polarity between the structure of a society based upon the soil and the regular cycle of the seasons on the one hand and that determined by the struggle with elemental forces and the challenge of unfamiliar conditions on the other is obvious. It is much more difficult to analyse social and religious patterns of behaviour when societies began to come into vital contact with one another and even to intermingle.

No more vivid example of this intermingling of the nomad and the land-based can be found than in the records of the Old Testament. The Canaanites, the settled inhabitants of Palestine, were agriculturalists. They grew wheat and barley: they gathered harvests of grapes and figs and olives. They celebrated festivals to mark the seasons and they regularly offered sacrifices at local shrines. Amongst many deities the goddess Asherah occupied pride of place.

In contrast, the pilgrim people from the wilderness had never been free from anxieties about food and water and their place of encampment. They kept a weekly day of rest and celebrated an annual spring festival. Their leader was a prophet believed to be the mouth-piece of the God Yahweh who in turn was conceived as Shepherd and Ruler of his people.

The Old Testament writings are now generally regarded as having originated from the period after the arrival of the tribes in Canaan and therefore as giving direct evidence of the fluctuations between assimilation and exclusiveness which characterized Israel’s history for many centuries. That there were many who settled on the land and gradually accommodated themselves to the established ritual practices seems certain. Yet the strongest and most enduring policy was that which took over elements of the agrarian social organization and ritual practice and made them subservient to the kingship of Yahweh and to the worship of the people whom he had brought into covenant relationship with himself. A social hierarchy was set up under an earthly king: a system of regular festivals and sacrifices was established under an organized priesthood. Again and again attempts were made to accommodate Israel entirely to the local nature-religion and to make continuing life within a settled hierarchical order the ultimate concern. But just as often prophetic reformers were at hand to recall the people to the living God and to his acts of saving power, to his covenant which transcended all other forms of social organization and to his revealed purpose which must govern social behaviour.

Does this mean that the: figure of Yahweh as conceived in the Old Testament is depicted through an exclusively male symbolism? It has been pointed out that when Israel is referred to as a son or a child the imagery is as often that of a mother’s care as it is of a father’s guidance but the use of this imagery is quite rare. The symbolic titles constantly employed in reference to Yahweh are Shepherd, King, Warrior, Deliverer-all concerned with the male responsibility to act strongly for the defence, guidance and welfare of those committed to his charge. The mother-son symbolism is not entirely absent but the most striking use of sexual imagery depicts the role of Yahweh as husband to his covenant people. The bond which has been established between them is comparable to a commitment in marriage but it is Israel which is likened to the feminine partner.

The most puzzling use of feminine symbolism is to be found in the Wisdom literature where Wisdom, the agent of Yahweh, is personified as a woman. This may be partly explained by the fact that the Hebrew word translated wisdom is feminine in gender but it seems doubtful that this alone would have legitimized the creation of so impressive a female symbol. The literature belongs . to a period when Israelites were increasingly in contact with other nations and when Egypt, in particular, was developing systems of general education. There were instructresses in schools and mothers in the home interested themselves in teaching the way of life. In the biblical passages Wisdom is clearly subordinate to Yahweh: she is agent and attribute. But the feminine role as begetter and fashioner is certainly celebrated and the role of woman as artist and teacher is at least envisaged.

The key ,question now arises: how did the generally accepted view of the relationship between the sexes affect the early Christian movement’s symbolic forms of expression (in language, in ritual forms, in the ordering of communal life) as they appear first in a Jewish and then in a Graeco-Roman context? The witness to the life, death and resurrection of Jesus was the life-force of the new movement. It had to be expressed through symbolic forms already treasured by particular communities.

In the case of Judaism, there can be no doubt about its patriarchal character. The patriarchs, the prophet Moses, the king David, the priest-scribe Ezra were its representatives and mediators of the Covenant. Within the covenant-relationship God had made himself known as Elector, Protector, Law-giver, Judge, Guide. At the beginning of the Christian era the altogether central feature of Judaism was its worship of the God who had revealed the true and only way of life through the Law. The official teachers and interpreters of the Law were men. In all, public affairs worship, politics, education, trade-it was a dominantly male society and it was altogether natural that traditional male symbols should have been used to describe God’s relationship to his people. This conceptual framework was in no way repudiated by Jesus and his disciples. Yet it was in process of being vitally transformed by the new symbolism naming God as Father and Jesus as Son. It is probably in the experience of true fatherhood that the male shares most intensely in the expression of feminine qualities.

However the dispersion of early Christians out into the towns and villages of the Mediterranean world brought them into contact with a far more complex symbol-system; there were ‘gods many and lords many’; there were temples and images; there was a bewildering variety of cults. Moreover the whole tradition was that of devotion to and dependence upon the land and the life of nature. Sacrifice, symbolically representing and promoting the death-life rhythm, was everywhere in evidence.

Yet as one reflects upon. the political power of Rome and the extent of its military organization, it might seem at first sight that the Graeco-Roman world was dominantly patriarchal. But the tradition of 'the Mothers' was still immensely powerful. The principles of blood relationship, of affinities with nature, of cosmic wholeness were woven into the social fabric. Over the centuries the soil and the womb had been closely identified and agricultural labour had been viewed as comparable to the sexual act of generation. And although there were powerful male gods aplenty, it was the mysterious earth-mother that retained a tenacious hold upon the human imagination.

In a striking passage Professor W. K. C. Guthrie has commented on the general religious atmosphere of the Hellenistic world. Taking his cue from the writings of Hesiod he declares: ‘A noteworthy feature of the whole account is the abiding influence of Gaia, the Earth, from the earliest generation to the latest, not as supreme rules herself but as the universally acknowledged power behind the throne. Throughout the religious changes which took place in Greece, culminating in the vivid anthropomorphisms of the Olympian religion which the classical Greeks inherited from Homer, the awe inspired by the earth-mother never failed though she was recognized to be, as indeed she was, a far older power in the land than the Olympians. Nor were her prophetic powers forgotten: At Delphi itself she was acknowledged as the original tenant of the oracle, now presided over by Apollo on behalf of Zeus’. (Cambridge Ancient History. Revised Edition II.11.38)

It was into this atmosphere that Christian missionaries came with their gospel of the supreme God, Yahweh, who had sent his Son into the world to proclaim good news and to heal the sick and distressed and who, when the Son had been condemned to death on a cross, had raised him to newness of life. How could this gospel with its overwhelmingly male symbolism and its background of the history of a pilgrim people be related to a culture with an undergirding female symbolism and a background of settled life sustained continuously by the resources of soil and seed? Theologically, in the Jewish context, Jesus had taken the place of Torah (the Law); in the realm of popular religious feeling he had taken the place of Messiah, the conquering hero. In the Hellenistic world theologically he was to take the place of Logos (World-order); in the realm of popular religious feeling he would replace Apollo, son of Zeus, who had attained such eminence in Rome in the first century of our era. But whereas the overarching consciousness in the racial memory of the Jews was the victory of their God over all the forces of nature and the power of his word to order and direct the social life of his people, the parallel consciousness within the racial memory of dwellers in the Mediterranean world was that of the beneficence and fruitfulness of the earthmother and of the wholeness of organic life in society which she had been able to generate and sustain.

It was the daunting task of Christian missionaries, apologists, teachers, bishops to be faithful to this double heritage without allowing either to be submerged by the other. It is clear that the fall of Jerusalem in AD 70 virtually marked the end of any accommodations within Judaism such as had entered its religious life through contacts with its neighbours. Temple sacrifices ceased. Priesthood became simply nominal. Association with the land and its productivity became almost impossible. Survival depended on trade, crafts, education, while religion consisted in honouring the one God through prayers and obedience to his Law. It became increasingly a male-dominated culture with women confined to the care of home and family. From this cultural context Christianity was almost entirely excluded.

How then could it retain its Jewish heritage? Only by clinging to the Old Testament and to the Hebraic symbolisms of the New Testament, of its early sacramental observances and of its communal organization. The balance tipped heavily towards Hellenistic modes of interpretation,. cult-practices and intellectual conceptualisations. Allegorization made possible the continued appeal to the Old Testament; sacrificial terminology came to be applied. to the Lord’s Supper and regenerative terminology to Baptism; Logos and Pneuma became key-terms for re-interpreting the concept of God. So far as male-female principles were concerned attention was focussed upon the mother-son relationship in the gospels and the performance of certain functions within the church by women was allowed. Celibacy and virginity as ideal forms of religious life were foreign to Hebrew culture but belonged naturally to the religious tradition of the Mediterranean world.

In retrospect it is hard to see how things. could have been otherwise if Christianity was to survive within a context whose symbolic forms in art, literature and religion had developed primarily through relatedness to the natural order in its whole manner of life. There were indeed polarizing factors of high importance-the adventures of heroes, inter-tribal struggles and the establishment of formal law. But the basic framework of the economy remained intact and Catholic Christianity emerged as the purgation yet also as the fulfilment of this Hellenistic culture. The .Father-Creator was confessed and worshipped but remained absolute in his transcendence. The Son occupied the central place as mediator and priests were ordained as his representatives. In varying ways the feminine and regenerative aspects of life were recognized symbolically; the Virgin and Child, the Mother of God, Mary the immaculate; the church as the spouse of Christ and mother of the faithful; the Spirit as Dove, as brooding over the waters, as fount of life and love (and at least in one region deaconesses were regarded as symbolic representatives of the Spirit).

Thus a symbolic framework came to receive general acceptance in which God as ruler was represented by the bishop; the Son as sacrificer and sacrifice by the priests; the Spirit by the church, regarded as bride and mother. There were challenges to this pattern from militant emperors, barons, knights and merchants but the religious symbolism held firm until the later Middle Ages. Then came the resurgence of the dynamic Hebrew symbolism of the Old Testament, interpreted now not allegorically and anagogically but realistically and historically.

Whatever may have. been the diversified forces at work leading to the Reformation and the rise of modern science, one thing is clear. Within the new era it was man who rapidly grew in self-confidence as he invented new technological instruments and devised new forms of social organization. No longer was he held fast within a land-based economy and a divinely sanctioned hierarchical society. He began to see himself as harnesser of wind and water, as controller of fire and as fashioner of iron and steel. Moreover he dared to conceive of human society in terms of voluntary associations of life-minded; individuals. And the religious sanctions for these startling new possibilities he found in the Old Testament itself . The commission to have dominion over the earth, the prohibition of images and nature-worship, the sense of the divine control of all natural forces, inspired men to sail the seas, to exploit earth’s treasures and to pry into the mysteries of the heavens. Further, the Old Testament witness to the centrality of the Covenant for social organization legitimized the formation of societies whose immediate aims were directed to betterment in this world but whose ultimate sanction, they believed, belonged to an eternal divine purpose.

Within all forms of Protestant, Reformed Christianity which made a radical break with the Roman tradition, any kind of natural symbolism was only sparingly used. Perhaps the commonest was that of the fire: The story of the bush that burned with fire held powerful implications. If man could learn the ways of God and could co-operate with him in the utilization of the energies released by fire, vast new transformations might be achieved. But more important were the new social possibilities. If men could enter afresh into covenant relationship with God and into loyal partnerships with one another, they could face with confidence a whole hierarchy of king and lords and their armies, even when supported by the power of the church. The new societies within this new religious framework gave an altogether new prominence to manly virtues and skills, appealing to the exploits of Old Testament heroes and leaders and re-discovering the New Testament imagery of Jesus as Victor and Deliverer. And so far as ministry was concerned, the all-important matter now was to set apart men who could rightly interpret the Scriptures as documents of command and destiny and mold correctly perform the covenant ceremonies by which the Christian social order could be visibly sealed and confirmed. Woman’s function, as in the ancient Hebrew context, was that of caring for home and family, while man was engaged in processes of adventure, conflict and exchange.

In spite of the growing influence upon European cultural life of commercial enterprises, geographical discoveries, scientific inventions and industrial developments the traditional emphases upon the land and its bounty, upon the rhythm of the seasons and the coming of the rain, upon fair distribution and continuing production were never completely eclipsed. The time had passed when an agrarian economy, sanctioned by an imposing religious symbolism, appeared to be impregnably established. The rise of science and industry, also sanctioned, at least at first, by an alternative religious symbolism had restored a polarity within Christianity such as had not existed since the early tension between Hebraic and Hellenistic patterns of life. But whereas feminine generative symbolism was still powerfully operative within the Catholic tradition, within Protestantism it. was masculine symbolism which became publicly predominant. Science and its applications seemed to be a male preserve and a God who controlled the forces of the universe according to a system of mechanical laws seemed to provide the necessary sanction for man’s experiments and constructions.

However a major revolution has come about in the past century in at least two ways. First have come radical questionings about the necessity for any religious sanction for human enterprises. Is not the universe self-contained, a vast mechanism which is neither male nor female oriented but simply the structuring of a neutral energy? Men and women find themselves in a universe the regularities of whose operations they can discover for themselves. It is up to them to do the best they can with those factors over which they can exercise some control. The even more important thing is for them to work out ways of living together without recourse to transcendent powers or divine sanctions. Male-female relationships depend entirely on what seems advantageous to society as a whole.

The second major change has come about through the advances of the life-sciences and the increasing reliance upon electrical energy. The hard sciences focussed attention upon the external world sun, moon and stars, water, wind and fire, meals, tools, and fuel; the life sciences turned inwards to examine the body and its many parts, the processes of reproduction, health and disease, nutrition and genetics. Moreover whereas the hard sciences were originally concerned with the release of energy from external fuels, the life-sciences have directed attention increasingly to electrical forces operating within nature, within the human body, potentially within the atom itself. What has been called the second industrial revolution has come about through the harnessing of electrical energy in multitudinous ways and this form of power can be employed with virtually no expenditure of energy on the part of the human agent. Whereas in the first industrial revolution human strength and endurance were primary factors, now heavy processes are increasingly operated by machines while the manipulation of electrical machinery can be undertaken equally well by men or women.

But there has been another result of the progress of the life-sciences. Women’s subjection to laborious travail in birth has been lightened, her release from an unlimited series of pregnancies has been made possible and the distinctive function of child-bearing; which was at once her glory and yet the handicap preventing her full participation in public life, has been radically transformed. The mysterious process of conception and generation which seemed to be entirely beyond human control have now become not only open to regulation quantitatively but also, through the discovery of the genetic code, open to manipulation qualitatively. Woman can take part in public life as never before. At the same time the mystique of conception and birth, profoundly associated with patterns of religious symbolism, is being rapidly eroded. Can the conviction that sacrifice, life-through-death, exists as a principle at the very heart of reality, survive? Does the new emancipation hold out the prospect of a new and creative balance of male and female principles within the symbolic expression of Christianity in contrast to the largely opposed symbolic systems which have been in evidence from the sixteenth century almost to the present time?

Finally, in the light of this rapid historical survey, I present a few reflections on the immediate question of the desirability of ordaining women to the ministerial priesthood. First it seems important to recall the fact that ordination is, in its primary meaning, an ordering a putting in order. It is assumed that in any particular society there must be certain well-defined orders. Now in all societies order is established by the creation and subsequent public recognition of specific symbols. As Sir Raymond Firth has tersely said: ‘Man does not live by symbols alone but man orders and interprets his reality - by his symbols’ (Symbolism p. 20). Space, time, social activities and relationships are represented symbolically and in this way order is created and preserved.

So important is order for the survival of a society and so highly valued consequently are the symbols by which its order is created that man has been constantly inclined to believe that a particular. symbol-system is inviolable that any deviation, through discard or even through rearrangement, is a threat to that order on which his whole existence seems to depend. He fears chaos and meaninglessness. Once accepted, a symbolic framework seems to provide just the security that he needs.

Yet the very nature of a true symbol makes such a final security impossible. Two entities are brought together in a symbol but are not thereby completely fused and identified. If an absolute identification takes place symbolic relationship is terminated. Two-ness has disappeared. Inter-action and inter-anìmation are annulled and nothing more than a lifeless label or counter remains. Counters certainly have their use for dealing with lifeless objects but where person-to-person relationships are concerned possibilities of developments in knowledge and changes through creative actions must be allowed for. Above all symbols employed for the ordering of relationships between man and God must always remain open to amplification and re-interpretation and new creation.

Symbols are always human constructs fashioned in terms of relationships with the world and with fellow human beings. For Christians, the central and controlling symbol has been Jesus in his human career and in his death-resurrection. Of much of his human career we know nothing. But his teaching through parables, his ministry of healing, his relationships with his disciples and with the religious leaders of the time—these have been recorded in terms derived from the common human experiences of his time. Yet this particular human career so described is claimed to be the supreme symbol of the nature and activity of God himself. In and through it God and man have been brought together within a unique symbol whose implications are unlimited. and whose applications to new situations are universal.

An essential part then of the vocation of every Christian has been that of the imitatio Christi, the re-interpretation within his or her own situation of the pattern of teaching, healing, approving, condemning such as was manifested in the career of Jesus himself. And this pattern, constantly involving some form of self-giving, reaches a climax in the readiness to sacrifice even life itself. ‘The good shepherd giveth his Life for the sheep .... Greater love hath no man than this that a man lay down his life for his friends’. Through his followers in every age this symbolic pattern must in some way be expressed. The re-interpretation may be through the telling of imaginative story or through the performance of compassionate deed, through long endurance or through courageous action. In whatever way the central image of Jesus’ own career is re-interpreted, the new symbol will point towards the pattern of life-through-death which he himself displayed. And when the pattern is highlighted through ritual drama, there can be no disqualification from playing particular roles save that of rejecting Jesus’ own test of discipleship: ‘Whosoever will save his Life shall lose it; but whosoever will lose his life for my sake and the gospels, the same shall save it.’

There is a second immensely powerful symbol at the heart of the Christian faith. It brings together an amazing conjunction of opposites-death and resurrection. Here is a togetherness which cannot be imitated; it can only be proclaimed. But how can it be proclaimed when nothing comparable has happened in human affairs or experience? This has ever been the dilemma of the Christian witness. The unique must be made known through language (in the widest sense of a symbol-system which includes both speech and action) and yet no language can be adequate.

The only possibility is that of grasping from human communications-systems conjunctions of names or of critical events which in some way point towards the bringing together of Jesus-in-his-death and the Son-of-God-in-resurrection life. From Jewish cultural history Son of Man-Son of God, Servant-Lord, Son of David-Messiah, The Humiliated-The Exalted. Or again the Exodus story of bondage and despair reversed by deliverance and hope, the shedding of blood conjoined with remission of sins. By the use of such symbolic forms early witnesses sought to proclaim the revolutionary news that God in his holiness and utter opposition to the pretensions and prejudices of mankind had yet broken through the seemingly impassable barrier and overcome all alienations through the critical reconciling act of Jesus’ death-resurrection. ‘God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself.’ Henceforth it was an essential part of the vocation of every Christian, Jew or Gentile, male or female, to communicate, through symbols taken from their own particular cultures, the reconciliation of the apparently unreconcilable contraries-the righteous God and alienated humankind. And for this task there can be no disqualification save that of rejecting the belief that such an act of reconciliation has indeed been effected or refusing to seek language-forms to bring together the reconciling act and the culture in which his or her own life is set.

How far then can woman today represent the Christ who throughout the centuries has been envisaged as primarily a masculine figure? Physically she obviously cannot do so. Psychologically she can to a greater degree than was at one time imagined if it is true that male and female attitudes and qualities are possessed in varying combinations by every human being. Symbolically-and it is by using symbols that man and woman transcend the physical and literal-in the context where Christ stands before us as Generator and Sustainer and Fulfiller of Life (‘I am come that they might have life and that they might have it more abundantly) and as Reconciler of Opposites into unhindered Communication (‘You that were sometime alienated and enemies hath he reconciled: through him we have access by one Spirit to the Father) can she not be admitted to the ordering of those who are thereby privileged, according to time and circumstance, to represent the Christ in the sustaining of the life of the Body and in the communicating of the word of reconciliation to the world?

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